Please note: we have been online over ten years, and we want The Trek BBS to continue as a free site. But if you block our ads we are at risk.Please consider unblocking ads for this site - every ad you view counts and helps us pay for the bandwidth that you are using. Thank you for your understanding.

Welcome! The Trek BBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans. Please login to see our full range of forums as well as the ability to send and receive private messages, track your favourite topics and of course join in the discussions.

If you are a new visitor, join us for free. If you are an existing member please login below. Note: for members who joined under our old messageboard system, please login with your display name not your login name.

I actually wanted to see RDM do a 1 off BSG episode that followed an ordinary family or couple on vacation/business trip from the outbreak of nuclear war to some point in the series.
Everyone you know is dead. Your belongings? Gone. Your community, your world? Gone.
That favorite C-Bucs jersey your Dad gave you? Gone. Dad? Gone.

I don't understand how it can't have the unremitting grimmness. Its the end of the world, the end of civilization. Even as a child I loved the oBSG but it occurred to me at 5, how lightly they treated what was such a dire situation.

If anything RDM's version wasn't grim enough.

Even at the end of the world, if there is life...life goes on.

I LOVE RDM's take on BSG...but I don't agree his approach is the only one possible.

Yeah but just think of America after 9/11. Now imagine that instead of the twin towers, every skyscraper in New York was destroyed. Now the entire city of New York. The entire east coast. The whole nation. The whole continent. The whole hemisphere. The whole planet. The whole planet and 11 others just like it.

The analogy was 9/11 but in reality it would be many orders of magnitude more traumatic, more grim, more harrowing.

And again, not criticizing RDM's approach, at all. It was great. It worked...BUT I still contend it's not the only way to go about it.

Yes, the days after 9/11 were terrible. But we moved on. Life goes on. Life must go on. The more terrible events are, it's that much more important, essential even, to fortify, rebuild, cling to what is life affirming.

But it doesn't have to be an either/or situation. To say there are other ways to go about telling this story is not to say RDM was flawed in his choice of assumptions.

__________________
"New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled, the humiliating question arises, 'Why then are you not taking part in them?' " - H. G. Wells

We moved on from 9/11 because 0.00005% of the population was killed and a few buildings destroyed. We would not be able to move on if 99.999999% of our population was killed and every building, every piece of history, every achievement, every monument and heirloom, and all legacy of the human race were all destroyed.

__________________
"The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." - GK Chesterton

^ At the risk of sounding dense - We wouldn't be able to move on because we don't have access to a space fleet with which we can leave the planet and search for a new home. The BSG characters did. They didn't have to sit there and stew in the ruins of their worlds.

__________________
"But here you are, in the ninth
Two men out and three men on
Nowhere to look but inside
Where we all respond to PRESSURE!" - Billy Joel

^ At the risk of sounding dense - We wouldn't be able to move on because we don't have access to a space fleet with which we can leave the planet and search for a new home. The BSG characters did. They didn't have to sit there and stew in the ruins of their worlds.

And even then, if there were no space fleet, you could eventually see about rebuilding and recovering...or stew in your misery until you died out.

__________________
"New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled, the humiliating question arises, 'Why then are you not taking part in them?' " - H. G. Wells

Yes the fact that there were still people on Caprica a year after the attack indicates that left to their own devices, the inhabitants would have continued to rebuild. In fact since we only saw at most one continent of Caprica, what's to say that other survivors didn't flourish once the cylons packed up and left?

Wouldn't any human survivors left in the colonies eventually die of radiation exposure?

Many would die, sure, but not all. Radiation wouldn't easily cover an entire planet, it would be concentrated in certain areas and fallout would be carried around by prevailing winds. But there would definitely be areas exposed to very little or no radiation. The number of nukes required to totally saturate a planet with radiation is too excessive to be practical, even for Cylons.

Besides, the Cylons moved in after, so clearly they didn't want to make the planets totally uninhabitable.

Wouldn't any human survivors left in the colonies eventually die of radiation exposure?

Many would die, sure, but not all. Radiation wouldn't easily cover an entire planet, it would be concentrated in certain areas and fallout would be carried around by prevailing winds. But there would definitely be areas exposed to very little or no radiation. The number of nukes required to totally saturate a planet with radiation is too excessive to be practical, even for Cylons.

Besides, the Cylons moved in after, so clearly they didn't want to make the planets totally uninhabitable.

Late to the conversation...but...

Not all of the nuColonies were all that super deluxe to begin with. Aquaria was a frozen planet version of Minnestoa filled with libertarian goo-goo clusters, Gemenon was filled religious zealots and Libran was filled with lawyers. I'm guessing neither was on anyone's "must see" list while on vacation.

With that said, if you had some folks from a underwater research colony on Aquaria that popped their heads up a month later to see the one spot of dry land nuked clean, the overall level of radiation probably would be less, since there was less surface area to bombard.

As far as EJOs comment that BSG and Blade Runner should be linked in some way...sure, OK, I'm down with that. BUT, that would also mean that BSG would be linked by association with Soldier, and this would lead to confusion as to what part Kurt Russell would play in the new film...